AFCC Family Court Services Resource Guide

Do you ever wish you had a way to spark creative thinking about how to address issues facing family courts? Or maybe you have an innovative, interesting, successful, economical approach you would like to share? AFCC is collecting examples of services, programs, practices and processes that provide assistance to families who are involved in a family court process such as divorce, separation, and paternity issues. They need not be something identified as “best practices” or “evidence-based,” but they should be successful in meeting the needs of the families, professionals, and courts involved. These examples will be shared publicly as a way to help develop new approaches to these difficult issues.

Goal

The goal of this project is to widen the accessibility to, and options for, family court-related services, and to serve as a catalyst for the development of new ideas within the family court community. The information collected will be directed to the family court professional community and made available online.

Criteria

This description is purposely wide to allow for a variety of creative ideas.

Your submission should be a service, program, practice or process

Available through a court, nonprofit, other public sector or non-commercial agency

Operating currently or previously in operation but ending due to funding limitations

It may involve a specific component or aspect of an approach or an entire program.

The focus is on program or service ideas that will spark creative thinking in others. For example, we are not looking for descriptions of typical mediation programs for child-related issues in divorce, but if you have identified a method of incorporating the child’s voice into the process or a program that provides interpreters for a wide variety of languages or access to families living in rural poverty, that might be really interesting. We are not trying to be comprehensive.

We will not accept submissions that promote a product for sale, or if the program is not willing to freely share additional information. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Feel free to complete multiple forms for multiple ideas. Please forward this request to others who may not have been contacted.

Thank you for your interest in identifying and promoting effective services for the families we serve. We are casting a wide net in hopes of collecting a wide range of ideas. Although all entries will not be included in the data base, all applications will be appreciated.

Who Is Conducting this Project?

This information is being collected by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) Family Court Services Resources Work Group. AFCC is an interdisciplinary, international association of professionals dedicated to improving the lives of children and families through the resolution of family conflict. AFCC promotes a collaborative approach to serving the needs of children among those who work in and with family law systems, encouraging education, research and innovation, and identifying best practices. Its membership includes judges, lawyers, mediators, psychologists, researchers, academics, counselors, court administrators, custody evaluators, psychiatrists, parenting coordinators, social workers, parent educators, students and financial professionals.

How to Submit Your Service, Program, Practice or Process

Please click on the link to access the online submission form. We recommend that you review the questions and complete the narrative portions in a word processing document, then cut and past them into the online form. Applications will not be considered unless they are complete and submitted through the on-line form.

Thank you for your interest in identifying and promoting effective services for the families we serve. We are casting a wide net in hopes of collecting a wide range of ideas. Although all entries will not be included in the data base, all applications will be appreciated.